eezstreet

I know a lot of you are liking the OP, but I am interested mostly in whatever feedback that people have to offer.

I probably meant "mods", not "models". The problem with making mods for cash is that you're ripping off of the game itself. Especially in the case of code mods and level design, and even more so when there's highly proprietary formats involved like those involved with ICARUS and GLM. Since neither of those two formats have been explained in depth to us by Raven, it's pretty safe to say that the format isn't open, and likewise, the use of those formats wouldn't exactly be ethical. Then there's the concern of moral integrity, respect, things like that involved.

Use v1.33 for launcher. I have a feeling you're using the old version.

Regardless of whether it's rigging, it's still important information that needs to be known. We're getting off topic here though.

It's part of models being put into the game.

Last I checked, Assimilate was definitely part of the Jedi Academy SDK.

Regardless, there aren't a great deal of tutorials on JKH regarding it, and it's pretty necessary really.

This totally wasn't @@Caelum's idea or anything, but I think JKG has gotten off on the wrong foot with a lot of people, and this is my chance to try and change people's opinions about things. I would like to apologize for the rushed release of the initial game, and sorry about the misinformation that was generally given out about the state of the mod, and the useless hype around the release. Going forward, I want to get some opinions from the community about how to improve the game and make things better, accessibility of the mod, gameplay, whatever. I think we have a lot of things to make up for, and I've taken a lot of the flak (and believe me, I took it quite personally) from various different communities such as MB2, JKH, on our own turf at TerranGaming, Moddb, Facebook, all of those different places. I think we released a very buggy and incomplete product. A bit of a shame really. We rushed to get the game out by the release date, and I think that we ought to have delayed the release personally. But unfortunately shortcomings are quite common in the world, and a lot of them befell the release. I've personally spent a lot of time trying to rectify our mistakes. Lots of bugs and changes were done, as our patch notes may indicate: http://jkg-update.terrangaming.com/packages/public/patchnotes.html And the next patch will fix things even further: What I want people to do is give us some kind of feedback in general with JKG. Constructive criticism, a description of whatever bad experience you might have had, a description of whatever good experience you might have had, an idea as to where we should take things, all things will be considered. I'll watch over this thread very carefully and try to respond to each answer thoroughly. For any JKG devs that are watching, I ask that they do not respond to this thread, I will handle things myself the best I can. If for whatever reason this thread dies out, I ask that someone mention me.

Hm. This kinda reminds me of the whole debate over abortion. Taking a stance like this one says to me that you don't really care. I can respect that. I can respect paying for a model. I can't respect paying for a mod. Fair enough. But I believe that people need tutorials because they aren't naturally lazy, they need some way to learn. JKH doesn't have any real tutorials on the matter and I doubt that tool tutorials are going to be enough when it comes to rigging, as it's a complicated process.

I kinda have a different viewpoint on this (see what I did there?). It isn't a victimless crime if you think about it. The victim is the community itself, because if people are openly accepting money for mods and trading them for cash, at what point will the community start making mods simply for cash? Nobody would be able to simply request a mod or get help with anything without there being cash involved. Openly allowing people to pay for mods, directly or indirectly, only condones such behavior. You have a fair point here. But when you're releasing such a large mod as kotf, and (not taking into account the obviously stolen content and simple scripting that the mod is) you're basing it off of the factors of both the Star Wars IP and the Jedi Academy code which lays the foundation, that's stealing from the game developers and George Lucas. So either way you swing it, you're still stealing. How would you like it if someone made a modification of JKHub, and then required pay for people to join, and it actually made a reputable profit? Pretty miffed, I would assume. This. And resources, I presume I wasn't actually aware of such a thing going on. But at least he's cleaned up a bit, I suppose. However, the mod is developing now at a much more steady pace. Notable is that the running animation you've mentioned is gone already in the next patch

So how does it stand morally, which in my opinion is the bigger issue?

Sure, but if he didn't have any donation, the creator probably wouldn't have made it. Frame of reference:

Ninja'd, so I'll respond to this here. it's good that the tutorial will come about, but I still don't agree with the fact that it needed a texture to be brought into the community. Someone doesn't have to simply "want" something to get things done. I for one want bigotry, greed, and ignorance to end. Now, I've already spent pretty much my whole day on a forum defending my idea that one of those tenants should be upheld (and another, indirectly), that doesn't change the fact that people like Dan Mor or Tim are still profiting from the modding community. That's why we need to inspire people. We need to inspire people to make models and other artwork, because people want tutorials on how to achieve what they're trying to do, not something which may or may not be unrelated. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to spend 30 hours or more studying on the theory of light before I learn anything about graphics programming.

Sorry, I misinterpreted. I thought he meant a prepackaged mod. Either way you swing it, "donating" for a "mod" to be "released" is still wrong. Yeah, I misinterpreted. Sorry about that again. ._. And I'm talking about mods here, and whether or not it's legal for people to make mods, which for all intents and purposes, the OP of that thread was explicitly asking for. He wouldn't have asked for a simple mesh to be done on a forum explicitly about modding. That simply doesn't make any sense. Why would somebody ask for a mesh on a relatively small forum such as this for a specific niche, in favor of something like IndieDB or Polycount, where that kinda stuff is traded all the time. Furthermore, the lack of explicit sentiments such as "I only want the mesh, I'll put it into the game myself" (which I guess I would've been fine with, I don't totally agree with it, it's better than paying for a mod I guess but I still kinda disagree with the idea) makes me believe that the person was wanting a mod made, not a model.

It's illegal if you violate the game's EULA, is it not? That's a minor point though.

Fair enough. See my below post about how that differs from how this would have taken place. Things like that generally imply that the creation is open to the public for free use, without requiring a donation in order to take place. Now, what Tim on the other hand did, he accepted "donations" so that his mod would continue. And generally I think everyone agrees that what Tim did was wrong. At what point does someone who fulfills the OP's (of that thread's) request become someone like Tim? What makes someone like Tim different from someone like a modeller who makes a model for cash? Was it just the viruses or the content he stole that made his actions bad? What about Dan Mor? Was it the fact that he piped the Ukrainian JKA community into his site, or was it the content that he stole that made it bad? See, the reason I bring up thievery is because it's all become clear to me now. If you're releasing models on the GLM format for cash, the GLM format was engineered and made by Raven Software, how fair is it that they spend all this time creating all these formats and exporters when people are practically gyping them for doing so? In a sense, you're kinda stealing from Raven, which in my eyes makes modders who do things for cash no different from Tim. And it doesn't matter what the drug dealer's motivations are, or how many times that he's sold drugs is. The fact is, the person who sells the content is someone who's done that. A drug dealer is still a drug dealer if they've done it one time after all. If I give you a donation as a means of gratitude after giving me some weed, does that still make it illegal for that transaction to take place?

From what I've gathered, people have been echoing the same sentiment, "it's fine to pay for models". Which, I agree, it isn't a bad thing. But I do disagree with making mods for cash. Because at what point do you decide that you're no different from Tim and Dan Mor, people that have deliberately sold assets for money? I'm not discussing the obvious thievery involved there. But I guess the same thing can be said of drug dealers: At what point do you go from a incidental person who sells a bit of dope for cash, to a dope dealer?

I guess the main thing I'm asking here is, is it wrong to make a mod for cash? Or isn't it? I'm not asking about models specifically. I'm talking about mods. I guarantee you that if the guy doesn't have the time to learn how to model, he isn't going to have the time to learn how to get it ingame either, since you would need a program to do such a thing, and some experience in the program.

Fine. I'll ask a real question then. Can I pay you to make a mod? No, but I still disagree with the idea that people need to pay money in order to get models done. Why waste all that time making a model for a guy for a few bucks, when you can curb the things you talked about in this thread by making a tutorial? That way, the community can benefit, not just one or two people with a dollar in their pocket or a model in their base folder.

? So...you're agreeing with my sentiment then? I'm confused as to what your position is. Yes, clearly. Money makes the world go round, etc. Most carpenters make people pay after the work is done. Which is ironic, since modelers don't pay for materials like carpenters do. Besides, what will you have lost if you didn't get paid? If we're talking about a carpenter again here, you're talking about wood and time, as well as space in their shop, and if they want to get rid of the piece and recuperate any of their losses, they have to go through the time to get the thing sold. Heck, modellers in my mind gain something from making models, since at the very least that can be a portfolio piece. I'm talking about in a hypothetical situation, in the perfect storm, how things would play out. If I paid you to make a mod, not taking cost into effect, not taking the idea of "doing this for a living" into effect, in fact, would you make a mod for cash? Yes or no? What's ridiculous is charging people for mods.

Why won't it never occur? You don't know that it won't ever occur. I could offer a job where I pay you $600 for each model (just using that as a baseline) tomorrow, and you mean to tell me that you wouldn't feel any bit wrong about modelling for JKA for cash? And for the record, I'm referring to a full PK3 and everything, all packed up nice, rigged, tagged for the game, all the amenities there. Don't see why you're making this personal, but okay. Difference is that freelance artists make models for a living, they don't make mods. I find making mods for pay is fundamentally wrong. Nothing wrong with models. And the reason I think why modellers don't make the cash is because sometimes the cost of these models is outrageous if you ask me. Quadruple digits for a model that took a week isn't really worth it if you ask me.

What does "probably" mean though? Means you're considering making models for mods for cash? Or that you would be intrigued by doing it? Would you make models for cash if you had the skill to do it, the time to do it, and you made more money than your day job?

You seem to be avoiding my question: if you got paid at a rate, salary, hourly, whatever, for making models primarily for use in mods, in such a case that you were getting paid more than your day job, would you do it?

I want a blog.